“The Rift is an open platform,” said Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, one month ago. “We don’t control what software can run on it, and that’s a big deal.” A day later, dozens of headlines proudly proclaimed that Oculus wouldn’t block virtual reality porn. Sadly, it’s not true. Not the porn part... and maybe not the open…

Another day, another cynicism-inducing reminder that the NSA hasn’t just been unlawfully dragnet spying on our digital lives—it has also rigged up new and complicated techniques to do so, like hijacking app stores to put spyware on smartphones.

I think at this point we can pretty safely say that BlackBerry’s BB 10 relaunch was a bit of a disaster for the once-mighty Canadian smartphone makers. I mean, you don’t give your CEO the boot for nothing right? And it now seems the company is ready to fully capitulate to its Android rival.

It's that time of year where you have to start gifting, and you'll find yourself faced with all sorts of deep, important questions. Here's one to get you started: Is it tacky to give an app store gift card as a gift?

Do you remember when we heard that Amazon was creating its own app store for the Android platform? Further details have been shared about the store, which will compete with Google's own app store in the US this year.

App store analytics firm Distimo recently released a bunch of juicy info about the major mobile app stores, and the results are pretty interesting. For one, Android has a much higher proportion of free apps.